Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos asked President Obama whether he had failed to live up to his own foreign policy standards during a wide-ranging interview Friday.
With polls showing the highest-ever disapproval for Obama's foreign policy path and Iraq threatened to be completely overtaken by the terrorist group ISIL, the president argued "the world is messy" but he still welcomes the opportunity to solve problems.
Stephanopoulos read out from Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope," where he wrote, "without a well-articulated strategy that the public supports and the world understands, America will lack legitimacy and ultimately the power it needs to make the world safer that on it is today."
"The majority of Americans don't support your path on foreign policy," Stephanopoulos said. "Are you failing by your own standard?"
"I know we go back to the polls, but throughout the first half of my presidency, the polls consistently showed strong support for my foreign policy," Obama replied.
"But the public has to support it, doesn't it?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"Not at every minute, George," Obama said impatiently. "Not every week. Because there's going to be times where the world is messy. One of the things you also realize during the course of five years is, if the problems were easy, somebody else would have solved them already ... You're tackling stuff that is really tough, and I'm glad that after five years I'm still here able to do it."